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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Impotence \Im"po*tence\, Impotency \Im"po*ten*cy\, noun [L. impotenia inability, poverty, lack of moderation. See {Impotent}.]
1. The quality or condition of being impotent; lack of strength or power, animal, intellectual, or moral; weakness; feebleness; inability; imbecility.
Some were poor by impotency of nature; as young fatherless children, old decrepit persons, idiots, and cripples. --Hayward.
O, impotence of mind in body strong! --Milton.
2. Lack of self-restraint or self-control. [R.] --Milton.
3. (Law & Med.) Lack of procreative power; inability to copulate, or beget children; also, sometimes, sterility; barrenness; specifically, in males: the inability to achieve or sustain a penile erection; erectile dysfunction. [1913 Webster +PJC]
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
impotence
noun
1: the quality of lacking strength or power; being weak and feeble [syn: {powerlessness}, {impotency}] [ant: {power}, {power}]
2: an inability (usually of a male) to copulate [syn: {impotency}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
132 Moby Thesaurus words for "impotence": absurdity, adynamia, aimlessness, anemia, aridity, atony, barrenness, birth control, blah feeling, bloodlessness, bootlessness, cachexia, cachexy, carelessness, carnality, coldness, contraception, cowardice, dearth, debilitation, debility, dry womb, dryness, dullness, easiness, easygoingness, emptiness, enervation, etiolation, faintness, family planning, famine, fatigue, fatuity, fecklessness, feebleness, flabbiness, flaccidity, flesh, fleshliness, forcelessness, frailty, frigidity, fruitlessness, futility, helplessness, hollowness, impotency, imprecision, inadequacy, inanity, incompetence, indifference, ineffectiveness, ineffectuality, ineffectualness, inefficaciousness, inefficacy, ineptness, infecundity, infertility, lack of force, lack of influence, lack of magnetism, lack of personality, lack of power, languishment, languor, lassitude, laxity, laxness, leniency, libido, listlessness, looseness, loosening, love, lovemaking, marriage, meaninglessness, negligence, no say, nugacity, otiosity, overindulgence, overpermissiveness, permissiveness, planned parenthood, pointlessness, potency, powerlessness, profitlessness, prostration, purposelessness, rat race, relaxation, relaxedness, remissness, sensuality, sex drive, sexiness, sexual instinct, sexual urge, sexualism, sexuality, slackness, sloppiness, sluggishness, softness, sterileness, sterility, strengthlessness, the absurd, triviality, unauthoritativeness, unfertileness, unfruitfulness, uninfluentiality, unpersuasiveness, unproductiveness, unprofitability, unprofitableness, unrestraint, valuelessness, vanity, vicious circle, voluptuousness, weakliness, weakness, weariness, withered loins, worthlessness
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